“It was a lot of work, there was a lot of days where we do almost 16 hours of walking around but it was really fun meeting all the girls.”

The pagaent featured over 50 women from across Canada.

Besides finishing in the top 15, Kalyanapu was also presented with the People’s Choice Award, given to the contestant the public believed would best represent Canada on the international stage.

“I felt very honoured, grateful and very, very thankful that all these people voted for me, very happy, surprised, but happy.”

However, she notes this award made her overall finish a little disappointing.

“I thought this would be a great platform to talk about my views, my opinions, bring light on important issues like education so I was a little disappointed I didn’t have the opportunity to use that platform to spread my message out.”

Kalyanapu is currently an engineering student at the University of Alberta. She plans on taking a break from the pageant lifestyle to focus on her studies.

“We are so, so fortunate to live in a nation like Canada where women have all these amazing opportunities to build ourselves an amazing future.”